This week is a great time to be a comedy junkie in NYC, because we're getting ready for the 9th Annual Del Close Improv Marathon, named after the man widely appreciated as the originator of long-form improv. I love this stuff, because anyone who can head onto a stage and weave an hourlong musical out of nothing more than a suggestion (in a recent show, it was "the smallest vampire in Sheboygan") is someone I want to know. Improv groups from all over North America are coming here to do this for 55 straight hours at three different venues, and I'm going to sneak away for as much of it as possible after I herd the boys into their bedroom for the night.

I performed a lot of improv back in the day, but it was short-form stuff, the sort of thing you see on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" when they tell you what the game is and you have to come up with zingers. And that's fine, although long-form devotees regard it with the same esteem as they might a steaming horse turd, or Alberto Gonzalez. In long-form you know absolutely nothing, and you have to recognize when the game asserts itself and go with it. It's hard as hell for us adults and our ossified minds, but for little boys it's just another day. So whenever I perform it (and am convinced I am suckiest sucker that ever sucked) I am inspired by my children, who can take a crib mattress and an old keyboard and build a ship for two space mice on an intergalactic mission to recover a valuable hunk of space cheese.

Also, somewhat relatedly: The other night I was on my way to the theater, which is in Chelsea, when I crossed paths with a young street tuff peacocking his way down the boulevard. He looked at my light-green polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Get this old FAGGOT."

I've been reading a lot about Blog Issues lately, and one that has resurfaced often is advertising. I used to shake my fist at the inexorable ad creep that burrows its way everywhere, but now I'm ready to let my lungs fill with water and acknowledge that advertising, although sucktastic, is the way of the world. It's everywhere, it's not going away, and my children will soon be of dream target age. So it falls to my wife and me to explain what it is and what it's trying to do, and maybe my sons will understand how and why they're being manipulated.

Ads on blogs don't bother me, and not just because I'm a Federated Medium. Frankly, they're so ubiquitous that regarding them is a lot like living next to the railroad tracks. The trains go by so often that sooner or later, you don't even notice them.

One thing, though: Those transparent pop-up things? The ones where you have to search for the well-disguised "close" button? That shit has got to stop, because it's fucking annoying.

As long as we're talking about marketing, I'm starting to wonder about that sandwich franchise that rhymes with (and may soon change its name to) Tubway. Isn't this the company that built its entire image on sensible eating? That prided itself as the anti-McDonald's by centering its ads around a former blob who slimmed down on a diet of bread and cold cuts?

This same company is now selling "super-stuffed" bread balls using absolutely
revolting footage of the many revolting ways that revolting people can
eat them, revoltingly. The biggest joke is the tiny woman who apparently finishes this immense foodlump in one sitting. If
she had somehow summoned the stamina to sock this entire thing away in
one go (and suddenly my mind is filled with the images like this one),
she wouldn't lick her fingertips so damned perkily. She would instead
be staring forward, hazily, begging for the sweet release of death. McDonald's should fire back with a new campaign: "At least our food isn't bigger than your head."

It's a curious marketing tack, but it seems to be working because my neighborhood is infested with new franchises. Including the new one around the corner, which has become a fun little puzzle. Twice over the past couple of weeks I've arrived twice in the middle of
the day to find it closed and empty, even though the sandwich board is still on the sidewalk urging us to Come On In. This other time, I walked in with the boys and found no one behind the counter. So I looked down the little corridor toward the rest room and found a dude in a chair, head on the table, fast asleep. Nothing roused him, so we grabbed a cup of ice water and left.

Over the past week, the boys and I have been soaking up a lot of sun. And it's completely nerve-wracking, because I alone am tasked with keeping their creamy, perfect boyskin from crisping over and launching lifelong battles against basal cell carcinomas and leprous limbs falling off willy-nilly. The directions on the sunscreen bottle aren't any help ("re-apply as necessary"--gee, thanks), and since they both sweat like fountains I use my two-pronged attack of 1) herding them into the shadier parts of the playground and 2) hovering over them with my spray bottle of SPF 50 until their skin shines like the hood of a Camaro.

You can therefore imagine the degree to which I lost my shit when I looked down at TwoBert and saw this:

How could this have happened? The kid has so much octocrylene on him that it's probably seeped into the marrow of his kneecaps!

Easy now. Deep breaths. He doesn't seem to be in a lot of discomfort. That's odd: It doesn't feel warm to the touch. And, hey, it doesn't go white when you press it. What's going on here?

Then, the Eureka moment: TwoBert had been wearing a pair of red cotton shorts, and when we ran through the sprinklers the dye ran onto his legs. (I suppose I could have prevented my full-scale panic if I had noticed that his "sunburn" became dried rivulets on his shins.) Crisis averted, all is well, nothing to see here. Right?

Not really. We got back too late for a bath that night, so TwoBert still had his redolent drumsticks when we went out to the MoMA the next day. And everywhere we went, people's reactions followed this pattern:

Regard man and two adorable sons out on the town. Smile warmly.

Have attention naturally drawn to super-adorable two-year-old in stroller.

I couldn't even get out my front door before my neighbor helpfully noticed that I had neglectfully let my child fry like a chicken. I spent about five minutes explaining myself, just as my neighbor was using his iPhone to Google Child Services, and we had a good laugh. And I spent the next several hours fighting the urge to explain to passersby that, see, here's the thing, we didn't have TwoBert's bathing suit yesterday because he'd just had a blowout crap, so we had to use these red shorts, and blah-blah-blah my child's not an Oven Stuffer Roaster.

That night, TwoBert's sunburn came off with a little bubble bath and a washcloth. If only all shame could wash away so easily.

Some of you may have noticed lately that I've been twittering about buying a bike. I had one about ten years ago, and it brought me two years of joy until it was stolen out of my parents' garage. I'd wanted to replace it for years, but I never got around to it--mainly because my little apartment started shrinking when the boys arrived. I always thought a bike would be one of the first things I'd get when I finally moved out of here and got a little more space. But the time has come to think about the present, and about great it is to bike around the city. So I bought one yesterday and drove it off the lot cackling like an Australopithicus who had just discovered fire.

I started out slow, just pedaling over to the bike path that parallels the West Side Highway. You know, just to see how far up it goes. And you know what? After an hour and a half I discovered that it goes all the way to the northern tip of Manhattan. I met a couple of bike nuts just north of the George Washington Bridge, and after we foraged our way back down along the east side I went over to MapMyRide and found I'd ridden 22.9 miles. My flabby-babby and I are not on speaking terms.

That was a nice bit of improvised discovery, except that when I ventured forth I'd forgotten I'd scheduled an eight-mile hike through Harriman State Park. It was a splendid and peaceful way to send the oppressive city heat a hearty F-U. Except my shins and ankles have staged a sympathy strike and will not return my calls.

As I haul my throbbing, bow-legged arse off to bed, I'll leave you with a cinematical KILLER FACT: In the director's cut of That Thing You Do!, Tom Hanks's character Mr. White is gay. And his boyfriend Lloyd is played by Howie Long. Chew on that for a bit, and I'll be back when the Taint Rebellion has been quelled.

Last night Robert and I trekked out in the drizzle to see Macy's annual salute to combustion, and I took about three dozen photos that all look like this. So if you want a slide show, just show this picture to yourself over and over again, and you'll get the idea.

By the way, Robert spent most of the evening convinced that the building in the left foreground was about to blow up.

If you've ever doubted the didactic power of television, you may now rest easy. I've lauded the arrival of "Dirty Jobs" on the "Record Every Episode No Matter What" list on the DVR, but only as a diversion, an exercise in vicarious filth. For the Berts, however, it's becoming something of a cautionary tale.

The episode we saw yesterday was especially nasty. In one vignette, Mike visited an exterminator who had to eradicate some 70,000 cockroaches from one of the most squalid homes you'd ever hope to see. Ripped furniture, clutter on every surface, dirty dishes, appliances covered in brown scum, and two sheepish occupants skulking around to avoid the camera. Roaches teemed everywhere, by the dozens.

Robert watched this for about 10 minutes, his face frozen in a horrified rictus, when he suddenly decided he wanted to play Recycling Center. Then he put on swim goggles, work gloves, and his mother's rain boots that rose to his mid-thigh, emptied his toy bins unto the floor, and spent the next hour "sorting through" the boytritus. Lots of crap that had been Missing and Presumed Dead suddenly turned up, which is great because 1) I got to pitch about three gallons of broken and useless junk, and 2) the toys and games and puzzles that we've ignored for months can at least be ignored in complete sets, the way god made them.

You might think that's enough of a story, but hoo-boy is that not the truth. As usual, I've buried the lede in the interest of building to a narrative crescendo. Because in the next vignette, just about every third word out of Mike Rowe's mouth was "poo." (It turns up in lots of places you might not expect, like in the molds used to make church bells.) Little TwoBert, who is living the dream by spending most of his time bottomless, watched intently as the host ran toward a shitting cow and caught a stream in a tin cup, for analysis. And just as he held his steaming mug of That Ain't Coffee up to the camera, TwoBert walked over and took a seat on his potty.

I expected a little pee, because that's thankfully become pretty commonplace. But then came ... the Grimace. You know the one: forehead furrowed like a horseshoe crab, eyebrows searching upward, mouth stretched horizontally, bottom lip quivering slightly.

He tensed and wiggled and grunted, and presto: the little scamp put the biscuit in the basket.

So you might be out tonight at some fireworks display thinking it's for the country's birthday, but for me each blossoming bunker-buster will represent TwoBert's Targeted Defecation, the snow-capped summit of toddlerhood. Granted, he's bound to slip down the slope a few times before he's out of diapers, but it warms my heart to think that before the summer's over I'll spend more time wiping vertical buttcracks than horizontal ones.

I think I saw my first Mermaid Parade in 1994, with my then-roommate Eric. Back then it was still largely undiscovered--a neglected half-sister of the Halloween Parade, only nuder and sweatier. Handfuls of people lined the streets to watch ardent exhibitionists strut just about all of their stuff (no matter how flabby, hairy, or tat-covered), and then get started on their summer base-burns on the beach.

[* We used to call the parade "Tits-a-palooza," since everyone and her sister showed up to sun their nubbins. But this was the parade's 25th year, and in its early adulthood it's become a bit more demure. I mean, you still have the occasional bronze knob and such, but most of that has been overtaken by dudes with fish on their heads.

And given all the crazies who brought strollers into the scrum, you could also have called it "Tots-a-palooza."

Ever since that first parade, Eric has evolved into my Coney Island buddy, because it seems I'm rarely there without him. We often go to Cyclones games (so we can yell "Let's Go 'Clones!" in their beautiful, seaside stadium) and take the boardwalk to their namesake, which is still rickety-rockin' after 80 years. I'll always remember the time we daytripped there and, buoyed by the impossibly clear sky, made a point to take in the beautiful views from atop the Wonder Wheel. I remember feeling awed by the Twin Towers, which were so crisply visible from such a long distance. That was on Sunday, September 9, 2001.

Anyway, perceptive readers may have noticed that I have a new Flickr badge in my left-hand column, and I've posted some pictures from last Sunday's day at the beach. If that was the last Mermaid Parade for a while (as developers have big plans to remake Coney Island into a more corporate playpen for tourists), then at least I can be one of the million or so people who helped save it forever, in our hearts and memory cards.